Happy October

Now, this is a post that could get me in trouble. But I'm going to write it anyway. Go outside, if you live in the northern hemisphere in anything resembling a 4-seasons area (meaning, not my brother in Houston, or anyone reading in Palm Desert, California). Take a deep breath. Observe the trees. Drink in the crisp autumn air. Catch a hint of dry leaves, or perhaps a fireplace. Crunching acorns and black walnuts under your feet. People in sweatshirts and jeans (and mittens and scarves if they're like me). No hum of air conditioners. No drone of lawnmowers. The gardens sagging into winter. Wind. Gun-metal gray clouds hanging low, or, like yesterday, the brightest blue sky you've ever seen.

Doesn't it make you think of breast cancer?

Don't get me wrong. My aunt is a survivor; my mother's doctors send her for second opinions and "watch and wait." I am concerned enough for my own health that I do a daily breast exam (it's actually a lymph and breast exam my doctor recommended). I breastfed those kids until they were wrestling me to the ground for it.

And breast cancer awareness, I'm all for. Just like I'm all for any kind of awareness involving health, especially preventable or detectable disease. I want to know how to avoid dying young from something I didn't have to get. But could it be that shopping for the cure, as October seems to have become, is simply yet another marketing ploy, perhaps a reprehensible one? Could it be that consumerism will not save us from ourselves, will not save the world? Could it be that getting out the card and buying more pink crap is not really the best thing we could be doing to decrease breast cancer rates, especially since many of the same corporations who are pushing pink are not doing much to improve the status of the environment? Has no one noticed a connection between cancer and environment? Diet? Exposure to artificial hormones? What about pink ribbons actually improves the chance that my daughters will not get breast cancer? All they are talking about is cure.

I mentioned to my friend Mary that I was tired of the entire month of October--in which my birthday occurs--has been taken over by strident pink ribbon consumerism. Why not a month that was more conducive to pink, anyway? And why pink in the first place? Then Mary was at Schnucks, our local plain vanilla grocery store, and she noticed how very much everything had become pink and beribboned. This is what she gave me for my birthday. HAMBURGER HELPER FOR THE CURE? Hello! Red meat? Forget for a moment the artifical sweeteners in the gum and mints; think about how absurd it is to have English muffins for the cure. M&Ms? At least the granola bars are organic...But my very favorite--and hers--was the Fleischman's. At what other time in our lives is yeast the cure?

The winner in sheep to shawl

Textile Junkie posted about her Rhinebeck experience at her blog, and mentioned at the bottom that she didn't even get a picture of the winning shawl (her team's shawl) when it was all said and done, in the excitement and heat of the moment. I at least assume this was the winning shawl--I remember the blue one not winning, and the two red ones not winning...so I think this is the one that won. I had no dog in that race so I might have been mistaken, but I happened to get a photo of the judges measuring that shawl. Anyway, TJ, feel free to save it and use it, if it was the right one after all!

Oh, and here's the one decent photo I got of that group as well. Same goes for that--use at will.

Rhinebeck A-B-C

Got back from Rhinebeck yesterday after a long weekend in Upstate New York with wool wool and more wool running through my fingers. I thought about how best to blog this trip and decided that a Rhinebeck Alphabet might be fun. So here goes.

A is for Ann, who invited me to come along with her--she went last year with Janet but I couldn't get away at that point. So I went this year; I would love to go again next year but we'll have to see where we are, now won't we? Here is Ann checking her bingo card against another blogger's to see who's on whose card.

B is for Border Leicester Ewe. This year's sheep was a Blue-Faced Leicester, but I love the movie Babe. When Maw meets Babe, she tells him she isn't a common sheep, she's a "Bordalesta ewe. Name's Maw." I had no idea what she meant until I saw it written out at Rhinebeck. Huh. I learned a lot of stuff this weekend.

C is for carnival atmosphere. Crazy things kept showing up. Like, what does a fire juggler or a gemology show have to do with wool? Not sure. But they were there. As was this.

D is for dog. Sheepdog trials, to be more specific. Those dogs do amazing things. I could watch them all day, but there's yarn to be found. Here the dog has separated three sheep from the flock and is going to herd them through gates, into pens, and then separate them into 2 and 1, which the golf-style announcer said was the most difficult part of the trial.

E is for early. On Monday morning, we had to catch a flight that left Albany at 6:30 which meant leaving Saugerties by about 4:00 or so. We got there and to the gate in good time, right about 5 a.m. That would be 4 a.m. Central Time. I got really crabby as the day went on, but here we are before that happened, waiting at gate B4 for our tiny commuter jet to torture us all the way to JFK.

F is for fall colors. Ah.

G is for goat. Angora goat. A whole barn of goat. No goat cheese from what I could find (although there was sheep cheese). Here are three billy goats scruff.

H is for Hudson River. I could not believe how big the Hudson is. I will post more photos later that show its enormity--I live on the Mississippi and this was like a big lake instead of a river. Wow. This photo is taken with the Saugerties Lighthouse to the left.

I is for iced coffee. It was mid-seventies all day Saturday and Sunday. And we were tired. All hail the coffee vendor.

J is for judges. While Ann and I were there for many reasons, a main purpose was to find yarn (and roving for Ann) that you can't find other places. Small batch color artists. Hand-spun marvels. But for many people, Rhinebeck is a place to show off their hard work. Like their flocks, dogs, or their handiwork. Judging seemed to be happening everywhere--animals, photography, knit and woven items, yarn, performance art (see the "S" entry below), fleece. Ann and I walked into a corral area during one such animal competition, and I just had to take this man's photograph:

K is for kilt. What is up with the men in kilts phenomenon? Here are two of the several I saw (although I think I saw the second kilted man several times).


Oh, and one more.

L is for loom. As in, what I am not allowed to come home with. As in what my next thing to learn will be. But not just yet.

M is for mission for merino in chocolate, charcoal, or navy. What I was sent to find this trip. I found, umm, other things too, but I was on the hunt for a non-variegated aran-weight or worsted-weight merino in one of those colors. Maroon would have sufficed. I found it Saturday after lunch at a mill that was mostly advertising for folks to have their fleece processed there. But he had some of his work for sale too, and lo, there it was. Beautiful, reasonable, and I bought him out of the chocolate.

N is for nervous. When I snapped that photo of the judge, I also was witnessing a judging of overall herd similarity and quality. There were several farms being judged at the same time, but this little crew looked especially anxious. It's a big deal, obviously.

O is for On-board navigation system. We called her Donna. She never got us lost, although she obviously got irritated when we decided to go "off route". The tone seemed to change. The map went away after a while, replaced with this "You are too dumb to live" image of a U-Turn. She was hilarious.

P is for pizza and pudding (bread pudding) from an indie food dealer, which served as breakfast on Sunday. Organic, local, mmm.


Q is for quilted jacket. Quilts did not feature prominently, although there were some felt quilt creations. And they were used as tablecloths by vendors. But this jeans jacket caught Ann's eye. Sorry I didn't get a better image.

R is for rabbit. These things. I wonder if they are as high-maintenance as they look.

S is for Sheep-to-Shawl Competition. A basket of washed unprocessed wool is set down in the middle of a five-person team. One person cleans and cards it, 3 people spin it into yarn, and one person weaves it into a shawl. They are allowed to start with a warped loom. Four teams participated this year, including one called "Sheep Dreams" that had everyone wear pajamas with sheep on them. They have 4 hours to complete it, and then it is judged. Intense. Here, one team has five minutes left to finish tying all their fringe knots. This is now on my list of lifetime things I want to do. There is a total of four things on it now. I don't think I'll manage to do this at Rhinebeck, but Bethel has a similar competition. Now I need to learn to weave. Or spin. Or card. And find 4 more people. although I think I know who one of them might be. Obviously, this is not happening next year. Or the year after. But it's in my brain now.

T is for Trying Too Hard. There were many of these folks around. This is my one snarky moment in this ABC. Rhinebeck is a great place to people watch. Everyone wants to show off her (or his) talent involving wool. Sometimes this is beautiful (Ann's Kauni sweater, for instance) and sometimes it is average (lots of similar shawls walking around). But sometimes it is, well, trying too hard. That's all I'm going to say. But here was an example of just downright hat-wearing ingenuity.

U is for Upstate New York. Another tree and river shot:

V is for Vendors. Barns and barns of vendors. Vendors with yarn, with roving. With fleece. Felted hats. Spinning wheels. A whole high school gymnasium sized building filled with food and wine. Lots of vendors.

W is for wool. Duh. And because I didn't get any photos of the bags and bags and bags of fleece in the one cafeteria-sized room, here's one of wool on the hoof. Ann was not allowed to bring an unprocessed fleece home. That was my job. And I did not let her (she brought home everything but, however).

X is for xeriscaping. Just kidding. X-ray? The airport was really intense for me, someone who hasn't flown since 1998. But I survived. And of course there is no photo because I would have been put in jail.
Y is for yarn. Lots of yarn. Ann brought home lots of yarn. And so did I. Here's a bit of the bounty, sitting on my bed in the lovely little Comfort Inn we managed to find in Saugerties (which turned out to not be so podunk afterall...).

Z is for Zebra. No yarn out of zebras. But for some reason, "Where yarn is born" has something to do with the Serengeti. Hmm. There was also this angora roving in black and white natural stripes, but I'm not spinning yet so it stayed in its little bin.

Fabulous time--first girls trip since my own girls came along. It was good to get away.

Who is this chick on my card??

Rhinebeck: As much as my neighbors laugh, yes, I am going to a sheep and wool convention/festival. For those of you who have come to SCM looking for information about me, wondering "who is this chick on my card and how will I ever find her?" here's a little something for you.

For those of you who are confused but are wasting time at work and wish to continue to read, I'm participating in Rhinebeck Blogger Bingo. Folks who have blogs and who knit and probably who blog about knitting would be key--and go to Rhinebeck, can sign up with Stitchy McYarnpants and have their names included on a bingo card. Folks who do this, and non-blogging people who just go to Rhinebeck and read blogs often enough to participate, can be players. You get a card, you go to Rhinebeck, and you hunt for obscure people whose blogs you haven't even ever read, along with popular knitblog types.

I've never been. Annieknits convinced me to become a square on this blogger bingo (she also convinced me to go at all in the first place, although I'm not too hard persuaded).

Stitchy suggested putting hints on the blogs to let people know what you might be wearing (meaning: something you knit yourself and is stunning and amazing, like Annie's kauni sweater). I have something, but it's only 2/3 of the way done and in no way will be done by tomorrow's plane trip. So no raspberry cascade 220 aran sweater. And it's too warm to wear my chic collection of scarves and mittens. So. I considered cowboy boots and a stetson; black stilleto heels and motorcycle leather. But since both of those option would involve phone calls to uncles and fathers and sisters to gather the costume, I'm going to go with what comes naturally. Birkenstocks, yoga pants, a black hoodie sweatshirt that says "Wicked" on the front (from the musical). If you're up close, I wear a St. Benedict medal and have gray eyes. Oh, and I can't shut up.

And I'll be spending probably my whole time with Annieknits in her kauni, so you could always look for her and connect the dots to the fuzzy brunette with the big nose next to her.

Sleeping In = New Luxury

I was thinking this morning as the alarm went off, trying to count back to the last time I slept in past 7:15. Now that the homeschooling era is over (perhaps for good depending on luck in the lottery this January), there is no "oh, we'll just start a few hours later" temptation. Up and out the door. It's not a hard life--school starts anywhere from 8:20 to 8:40 (staggered arrival helps the teachers get kids to work). But I do like the luxury of sleeping in past 8, even 9, and since Atrium started on Sundays, that doesn't happen anymore those days. This past Saturday was a morning wedding, last Saturday was Atrium training, and the 29th of September I was at the monastery well into my day by 7:30 in the morning. That means it's been since the 22nd of September that I've rolled out of bed like a ten o'clock scholar.

This, on one hand, is an amazing feat. I inherited from my mother's side an ingrained lazy morning gene. Definitely night owls. My grandparents, once my grandfather retired, slept in until noon almost every day. My dear aunt Sarah, when I lived with her, snoozed till 10 or 11 most mornings. Of course, she was almost 80 at the time, and now she's past 90, so I guess she's earned that. My mother sleeps in, my sister Bevin is currently sleeping (it is 10:30 as I write this). And I've been burning the old candle at both ends of late, doing Important Things after kids and husband go to bed (ooh! like watch Law and Order and knit!), and then waking up to get everyone out the door for their days.

So Mike didn't have any appointments this morning and took Sophia to school. Especially nice since the van is in the shop and it would have been bike to school. Or walk. So here I am, still in my pajamas, not even had any coffee yet this morning. Maeve got a little extra sleep (although she is her dad's daughter when it comes to sleeping in: doesn't happen--but sophia is like me). I feel really awake for the first time in weeks. And today is really intense--tomorrow I'm getting on a plane for the first time in 9 years to go to New York for a sheep and wool festival.

Yup.

Leavin On a Jet Plane

My neighbors have a roommate named Natasha. She's from Latvia, and was here doing the chaplain equivalent to residency at Barnes Hospital. She moved in about a year and a half ago, and my neighbor mentioned that she'd be here for about that long. At the time, it seemed like an incredibly long time to have a roommate you've never met before.

I don't live in their house and I don't know how day to day operations went, but from a couple houses down, it seemed like a perfect arrangement. She was gone a lot--she'd stay at the hospital if she was on call--but she was home often enough to become incorporated into their lives and be another adult nearby, etc. This past summer, she played a little mah jongg with us. Mike helped her figure out her computer some. She was there the mah jongg night when we found out about the baby who had died of SIDS, and I watched her compassion that evening and knew she must be fabulously good at her calling.

She left for Latvia this morning. I got an email--could someone be here so she can drop off hre house key? I was, and she knocked on my screen door and handed me the key. We both got a litle teary eyed, which was weird for me. "Maybe I will visit, see you then?"

I told her that we would be here, regardless, and if she came to see our neighbors, we would see her then. She walked off to the folks who were going to drive her to the airport, and I thought about comings and goings a bit. I remember leaving in the middle of 9th grade, especially, because it was the first move that I realized that life was going to go on without me, moments after we'd driven away. I shut the screen door, hung the key on the hook to pass back to the neighbors later, and turned to put a movie on for Maeve. Made a note of my yet-again-defunct doorbell. Washed the dishes.

She's probably on a plane right now, heading home to her life, which I know very little about. I wonder how often she will think of her time here on Halliday, at Barnes, on the bus, in her hot little 3rd floor room in the summertime. It was a small coming, a small going, nothing earth-shattering or astonishing, but a tiny thread links a hospital room in Riga to a city block in St. Louis. Fare well, Natasha, we will be praying for you and your work.

The Most Unread

Library Thing, which is a site where I catalog my books like some sort of obsessive weirdo (which I am about things like catagorizing), listed the following as the 106 books most likely to be listed as "unread" by folks who list books on that site. I'm not certain if this means "I own it but don't read it" or "I wouldn't own this thing or read it at all" or "I wish I could read this but something keeps me from doing so" or whatever--perhaps a combination of various things. They aren't your typical high school and college books--in fact, many are from my book club just recently.

But I grabbed this off It's Not all Mary Poppins, which is a recent addition to my bloglines RSS feed thingy thanks to her husband, who I keep reading because I keep trying to figure him out, at Outside the Box. Anyway, once again, too much information. I think Annieknits has done this one as well but I was too busy or not hypergraphic enough at that moment to put in my two cents. So here's the list. And the directions as to how I manipulated the list. It's all about me.

The instructions are simple:
Bold those you’ve read.
Italicize books you have started but couldn’t finish.
Add an asterisk* to those you have read more than once.
Underline those on your TBR list--but I cant figure out how to underline, so I'll make them RED instead.


Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude*
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma*
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (partly in French class--in "the original French")
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics*
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island (only if the "illustrated classics for children" version counts)
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

The things they say

Ok, a few cute things for the grandmothers. Last night as we were leaving the church to head to the dinner part of the rehearsal dinner, about 7:30 at night, Maeve turns to Mike and says, "Where's my donut?" Perhaps our little south St. Louis parish tradition is becoming a tad ingrained.

Sophia in the car the other day asked, "Have the Cardinals had their world series this year yet?"

"No, honey, they didn't do well enough to be in the world series this year."

Thinking pause. "What do you mean?"

"The best two teams each year go to the world series. It isn't always the Cardinals."

"It isn't? I thought they would always go." So there's the budding little fan.

And lastly, we live across the alley from the independent public radio station in town (not the NPR affiliate, but KDHX, the very independent music and talk station). This week is their pledge drive, and our friend Rob is a DJ on Wednesdays nights. His show is Juxtaposition, 8-10 p.m. While I was practicing my mad mah jongg skills, Mike and Maloki walked over to visit Rob at the station and brought the girls. They made their radio debut. Sophia got stage fright and said "I don't know" a lot, but Maeve. Rob rehearsed with her and, on air, Maeve said, "Give us your money or I will be sad."

Rob's show brought in $250 over his budget, many listeners calling and mentioning Maeve specifically. Thursday morning, someone at the station demanded to know whose kids those were and how did Rob get them to come on the air.

Give us your money or I will be sad. I should try that.

It Finally Happened

This morning it finally happened. I can blame lots of outside influences, of course, but in the end, it has only to do with my own lack of resilience. Yes, it is cold outside finally, and Mike is celebrating by opening all the windows in the house, letting in every fall allergen that exists, thus making my children as whiny as I am. Yes, I had a teensy bit to drink last night at the rehearsal dinner. Yes, I came home and then chatted till midnight with friends while I played Tetris on the old Nintendo. Yes, it is Friday and that's hard regardless. Yes, yes, yes. But in the end, it's just me and my laziness.

I woke up this morning and thought, damn, if only I were still homeschooling. Then we could sleep in and take today off. At least the morning. Then I thought, maybe there's a way to just let Maeve sleep while I take Sophia to school. Maybe I could call Sophia in sick. Or late. Just start lying now and never stop. Then my day started to spread before me as I looked at my winter face in the mirror of the bathroom--I'm at the age suddenly, started last winter, that I have my bright cheery summer morning face and then the other, sort of a Dorian Gray effect, for the 5 1/2 months of this.

And I like October. Love it. My birthday is in a week and I've always loved the fall leaves crisp dry air bonfire hayride apple picking pumpkin halloween cider jackets frosty mornings. But this year, oy, October came right after August, which lasted two months. We went from sweaty Sunday to mild Monday to "It's too cold to get out of bed" Tuesday. So the house is still set for summer--swimsuits are still on the hooks in the hall, for instance--and the fall stuff is coming out all willy-nilly and crazy. Mike has his winter jacket hanging next to those suits. Sophia and Maeve, neither of them have proper jackets out yet. Bikes and skates and camelbaks and sandals sit amongst collected leaves and all the hoodies and cardigans I own. It's chaos.

Maeve is testing my will (duh) this time with potty training (STILL)--as if she wants me to totally freak out in public and get arrested. Sophia is getting a cold or something, and she's in the wedding tomorrow so she'd better get it together. Mike. Oy.

So the day unfolds. Yesterday, coming home from the rehearsal dinner, I told Mike how shocked I was that everything that was supposed to happen Thursday actually did happen. But today will not be so lucky. As Mary my neighbor said at mah jongg a few nights ago, I do not think I will continue to be temporary east after this hand. That makes no sense to any of you, I know.

And today isn't hard--I have to run a check out to our photographer from the summer (fabulous); I get to go to knit knite across the street this evening. But my aunt Gracemarie is supposed to come to Janine's shop later this morning, with the wife of the CEO of Enterprise Leasing--and I have on my butch softball shorts and a black t-shirt. I could not persuade myself to get into the shower this morning so my hair looks like you think it does. My eyebrows are done, but I don't have any mascara on. The only thing keeping me awake and not shooting up the place is this lovely cup of coffee in front of me.

Props to Blondemom

Blondemom posted this today. It is really good, although you kind of have to be a reader of Laura Numeroff's "If you give a Mouse a cookie" and a pig a pancake/party whatever books--they're sort of a wry "house that jack built" kind of wrap around stories. But here is her If You Give A Man A Beer.

Won't You Be My Neighbor

The Riverfront Times just decided that the best place in St. Louis to live is Tower Grove. Meaning Shaw, Tower Grove Heights, East, South. Where I live. I can see Tower Grove Park from my front porch.

It is a good place to live. For more reasons than they list. Yes, it is truly diverse--not just ethnically--and the people who live here, at least right around where I am, really like living here. I know every single person who lives on my block, and that's rare these days even in suburban cul-de-sacs. And there are a million billion children on this street, at least. Who play together. And not on scheduled play-dates, but like how I remember--run next door and see if Patti can play. If not, maybe Cammy down the street is home.

So won't you come and be my neighbor?

There's a one family for sale about 5 houses down. Amy moved to the east coast and it's just standing there waiting for someone. I don't think it's in very good condition, and it might be overpriced for the market these days, but location, location, location. You'd be next door neighbors to a mah jongg buddy, right across the street from the block grandparents.

And across my alley and east about 3 houses is another one-family for sale. Smaller, probably much cheaper, on an odd block but with some strong neighbors. The block captain is incredibly active, her ex-tenants bought a house two doors down. The radio station is a good neighbor, and the fire station is too. And you'd be on the alley with me.

And closest to my concern is the house next door. It's a two family and the owner has taken a job out of state. It is in excellent shape, recently reroofed and tuckpointed. I believe, but am not certain, that they are two bedroom units, with a possible third bedroom upstairs. It is only two floors, and the front porch is a little cattywumpus, but it is well-groomed and has good neighbors on both sides. I worry about that one, not only because it is next door, but because it is rental property. The current owner lived downstairs and rented to people he knew. The last owner did too. But what I fear is someone buying it as an investment property, running it through a management company, and tenants just not being the best. If I had the money, I would buy it, rent it for a while, and then convert it to a one-family. Once converted, it's unlikely to be un-converted. But since I do'nt have the money, I have to have hope instead. It would be perfect for a small family who wants income from the upstairs unit. Or, obviously, perfect for someone who wants a unique project converting it to a single family home.

It's the best place in St. Louis to live, don'tcha know.

Saying No to Calling?

The thing is, which I didn't bring up in RCIA, is that I really wonder if I missed a calling along the way. One I could have heard if I wasn't so busy trying to land a husband back in college. But of course, when it's all said and done, I wouldn't go back and change anything--my life with Mike and of course these lovely girls are worth so much. I just think I probably could have had an easier faith path--and a more challenging, deeper one--if I'd listened to what was in my heart in 3rd grade. In 7th grade. My junior year. Ah well. Some of this I will heartily blame on others--vocations were not even mentioned at the Catholic grade schools and high schools I attended. And the only nuns I got to meet in high school, oh my. Not people I would want to spend time with. But part of it was me. A serious desire to not be different.

In the end, I like who I am pretty well. And different is as different does. Whatever that means.

Discerning a Call

I am married to a person who accepted the catechism whole at about age 12 and never looked back. He never doubted, never worried. I am not this person. My faith was not well developed for a long time, although I learned a great deal academically about Catholicism, scripture, church history. I could speak about faith, about what we believed as Christians. But I never felt as though in my heart, I truly believed. I wanted to believe, and I must have asked at every theology class I ever took—is wanting to believe the same thing as faith? Over time I realized that faith was a gift, and more than anything, I had to hold out my hands and accept the gift. But I didn’t even know what that faith would look like. Did I already have it? What would faith be for me? It obviously couldn’t be the same as Mike’s, or as all those Jesuits who taught me at SLU. There was something about their certainty that frightened me. I felt as though I could not simply state my belief. For me, I had to feel it. Work through it. Be it.

It wasn’t there for me, though, and I didn’t know how to find it. I have a minor in Theology and even taught old testament at St. Pius V school, but never felt as though I believed any of this. It was almost as if faith were too good to be true for me, as if I could not attain it—all I could do was observe it in others. I talked a lot about it, I prayed about it, but I wasn’t really listening. I felt as though God wasn’t listening to ME, but I had it backwards. I needed to stop learning, stop seeking, stop running around and talking around what was most important. I needed to stop hiding from God behind all my good works and relationships and study. I needed to turn around and really listen.

When I was pregnant with my second daughter, I thought for sure this wasn’t the place for me. I had lots of doubts, I didn’t have anywhere to turn. I didn’t even know what questions to ask if I were to turn to someone or something. I started learning about the Friends, where I found some very good truths about God and my faith. The Quaker sacrament of silence, the imbuing of God’s presence in all created things—in some ways, it is very simple, but it is also very deep. I appreciated Quaker thought and ideals, but I never felt as though I owned them in my heart.

Maeve was born, and I went back to St. Pius, because we were threatened with closing and it amazed me how much this threat hurt me. I realized the community at St. Pius was meaningful in my life, even if I wasn’t sure about the faith of the Church itself. Maeve was baptized, we kept coming to church, and when the fall women’s retreat came along, Mike suggested I go. I did, taking Maeve with me, and had a lovely weekend with Sr. Cathy Vetter. One of the topics that weekend was Hildegard of Bingen. I could say a lot about Hildegard here, but the important part is that her life struck me for reasons I can’t even name. I left that retreat and read a book about her—which led me to the Rule of St. Benedict. This was not the first time I’d heard of the Rule; I was taught by Benedictine monks in middle school. But this was the first time I’d read it, and it was breathtaking. Here, right here, in the middle of Catholicism, was what I was looking for. I didn’t have to leave. I didn’t have to look. It was an earth-shattering moment for me, Memorial Day weekend 2006, when I sat in the cabin where we spend every Memorial Day, reading a book about the Rule applied to every day modern life. I read parts of it out loud to everyone who walked through the kitchen. It was like a laser pointing into my heart. I knew that this had something to do with what my faith was going to be. With my call.

...(Most of you know what happens here)...

And this is not the end of my calling. There are things on the horizon I’m starting to get an inkling of, and there are things I cannot yet see. There are doubtless things I will not discern, but hopefully with God’s assistance I will find my way where I belong.

All Balls Currently In Air; Please Try Back Later

Yesterday after mass, a new parishioner who was interested in Children's Liturgy of the Word came up to me to let me know that she and her husband were really intensely busy--lots of balls in the air trying to juggle lots of commitments, etc. I thought about the last few days and that's exactly what's going on here.

Sunday was rather intense. It started at 7:45 with Atrium at St. Margaret's. I'm the new assistant, and this is an interesting thing for me. I haven't been an assistant anything in a long time. So it was an interesting role. And Good Shepherd Catechesis is so specific, I was afraid to screw up the whole time. But it also taught me several things:

1) We're doing the right thing with Sophia. Wow. What a neat kid she is. So faith-filled and lovely. I don't say enough good about her.

2) I shouldn't teach first and second grade again.

3) TV really does permeate a child's experience, in negative ways.

4) the Catechesis training I'm taking will not extend to Level Two. I will only ever run this as a preschool. I think. Unless I could handpick my older children.

So then, that ended at 9:45 and we rushed over to ST. Pius for church. I was running Children's Liturgy with Mike, and we took a large group down to the room. The reading was about having faith the size of a mustard seed, and I'd brought a bag filled with seeds of various kinds--acorns, flowers, garlic, lettuce, radish, bean--and passed them around. Talked about each kind and how special they were--everything the plant needed to know about itself was in that seed. And how small they were. And then I pulled out a package of mustard seeds, which are tiny, and passed them out to show the dramatic difference between the "big" seeds and these little ones. It went really well.

Mass over, it was time for RCIA, where I was also running the show, sort of, since it is a collaborative effort. I was speaking about call, and I will post a little bit of that in my next post--I wrote out the week before a long thing about discernment, and although I didn't read from it, I did say just about everything I wrote down. It was great, even though I got all choked up when I started talking about St. Pius closing and how that brought me back into the parish...and then got teary pretty much according to prophecy from that point onward in the story and discussion. The other catechists shared some things about callings, and, even more so, the three candidates/catechumens who were there said nice things. It is so hard to articulate when you're in the midst of searching. But I loved what one had to say--part of why this person liked Catholicism and St. Pius specifically is that nobody was force feeding the catechism. No pressure. It was nice to hear that. I think it will be a good year.

Then it was home, and over to Maeve's godmother's (it was her birthday! Happy birthday to Maeve!). Then a hike up at Bella Fontaine Park. Home, chinese food for dinner (Maeve wanted rice). And cake, presents, chatting with my sisters and parents.

Busy SUnday. But pretty typical day considering the past few weeks. And what's ahead.

There, Julie. Enjoy reading. :^)

Spoiled by Car

Mike got rear-ended in the van a couple months back, and the woman who hit us had really good insurance. The van went into the shop, down at Niebling, on Monday, and they hope to have it done next Wednesday--and the insurance company paid for a rental. When I heard this was happening, I was happy about it, but geared up for basic no frills miniature car my kids would have to cram into in those big old car seats. But then Mike called the insurance agent and she said that they upgrade free of charge if there are children involved (obviously they've dealt with this before). So Monday morning, I got to go over to Enterprise and get into a big red Pacifica. I don't know anything about these cars--crossover vehicles?--but anything new and clean and big and with a good radio and all that, I gotta love it. When Niebling told me a week and a half (for some reason, I was thinking two or three days), I thought, this is one of the best things that ever happened to that van.

And they're replacing the entire tailgate, wihch means the broken strap on the inside will be a new strap. I am very pleased. For an almost 8 year old vehicle with 160,000 miles on it, it's time for a little plastic surgery. I'll have to vacuum it and get it washed when it comes home. And close my eyes and remember the rental.

Flattened at the Poles

Oblate has two meanings. The first is religious: an offering, usually applied to a lay person who has attached him or herself to a religious institution or order. The other is geometric: an ovoid solid wider on the horizontal than the vertical. I'm not quite that second one, but this weekend I did become the first meaning.


It was so nice to drive down Highway VV and see Conception Abbey coming into sight, even if we passed right by it to turn the corner and head up to Clyde. Mike and I visited on Saturday, but at that point, Friday night, later than we'd originally planned, we had to get where we were going. One of the oblates was staying up to unlock the doors for us, and I hated the idea of someone having to wait for me. Of course, we were late because we hit traffic, not really our fault, but we could have planned better. This is my big lesson for the weekend--the more people who are involved, the more careful I should be in planning. Anyway, we made it down the road from Conception quickly and pulled into the guest house drive. We were staying at St. Michael's House, on the evening of the Feast of the Archangels. Mike got a lot of comments all weekend about that.

Saturday morning came so quickly. We went to Lauds in the adoration chapel, and then mass immediately following. Sr. Jean Frances had someone else lead the weekend--she's having breathing problems, and even more so, it was nice to hear another voice. This time, two sessions on Saturday, a monk from Conception came up the road to talk with us. The morning session was on mindfulness, the afternoon on murmuring & gratitude. Murmuring. Also known as bitching to each other without addressing the problem through proper channels, which of course happens in families, friendships, neighborhoods, parishes, as well as monasteries. St. Benedict held murmuring pretty high on his list of sins against community. But when one encounters Christ in the stranger, in the other, in the family or community member, it is harder to murmur. A lot more to what he said, but he was enrapturing to listen to, therefore, I took no notes, I just took it in. Perhaps it will play out elsewhere. My favorite quote, however, was during the discussion of what a scandal Jesus was (born in an animal shelter, visited by unclean shepherds, eating with tax collectors, women--etc), and he mentioned the woman and the lost coin: "And of course she's going to throw a party for the neighbor women--she found the money before her husband came home and beat her!"

At lunch Saturday, we ate with three younger nuns and another oblate, talked exclusively about Fr Patrick's session. After vespers, however, and a nap, dinner was with Sr. Joan, a novice named Nancy, and a sister whose name has escaped me but may have been Audrey. We talked about the new neighbors--a whole group of reasonably conservative Amish have moved into the area, buying up farmland and setting up a community. Came to the last auction at the monastery, bought wood, furniture, looked at a stove ("But it was too big to fit on the back of the buggy" Audrey said with a smile).

Compline followed dinner--my favorite hour, on guitar, the same psalms every day, sang together in the dark by heart. You really are ready for bed after all this. But we went back to St. Joseph's guest house to meet with Sr. Jean Frances. Jean runs a meeting in a strange way. She never has an agenda (unless it's a business meeting, like practicing for a ceremony). She comes in, sits down, asks how folks are doing, and then rambles at great length until something strikes a chord with her audience. And then she delves. Saturday night, she talked about all sorts of things I don't even remember, and then suddenly, we were talking about hell. And her beliefs about God and judgment and redemption, and how much they really disagreed with Betty's. Betty was sitting next to me, and I think if she'd had a gun, by the end of the night's discussion she would have shot us all. It was really gripping. We had this big argument about the Prodigal Son and the workers in the vineyard and Lazarus and the rich man, background information, the use of parables, the idea of speculative theology...it was wonderful.

Sleep, then what seemed like an even earlier morning--lauds, eucharist, a meeting with Sr. Jean. Day prayer was the time of the ceremonies, and I was actually surprisingly not nervous when we slipped into the chapel and things got underway. Geri was first--she's starting her formation year--and then Joann and I went up. The prioress asked us questions (a lot like questions asked of parents baptizing their children), and then Joann and I read our pledge to the community. It feels like it's been a rather long engagement, and this day, like a long-expected wedding day, was natural and obvious to me. We read:

Peace! I, Bridgett (and I Joann), offer myself to God, as an Oblate of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration at Clyde, Missouri, and promise to dedicate myself to the service of God and neighbor according to the Gospel and the Rule of Saint Benedict, insofar as my state in life permits.

What has stuck with me each visit, and especially this one, is how happy all these nuns seem for me and for the others who have made this promise. I would almost expect them to have an air of strained tolerance--of course, that would be from my experience with several other Christian and Catholic groups that I've run across--but they seem so genuinely happy and pleased to have us there. Of course, we're not there often, and perhaps we are a break in routine. Or perhaps (of course) they are further on that journey of grateful acceptance of God's gifts. For women who spend a great deal of their days in silence, in prayer and contemplation, they are experts at conversation and hospitality. They are lovely, smart, funny women. Holy. Their lives are so different from my own, and it is wonderful to sit at table with them.

And the other oblates--our lives run the gamut from farmer's wife to lawyer, from peace activist rural Catholic workers to conservative suburban Kansas City parishioners. I fall comfortably in the middle of the "left" half--but really, we've all come to Clyde to pray and think and contemplate. Sr. Dawn at one point told me that if I was interested in social justice, I should look into the oblate program in Erie, Pennsylvania, but I thought, no, my cup is filled in that department. What is missing in my life is what I found at Clyde.

Can't get started; a meme to help

Here's a meme from blondemom. "Because I have another name besides Mommy" Supposed to reveal "riveting facts" about myself, each starting with a letter of my middle name. Well, since my middle name is what I go by (yes, I'm one of those, and one of these, and those, and over there, those), I thought instead of Bridgett I'd use Sarah. It's shorter. I have the attention span of a gnat these days (which is why no blog for 8 days).

S is for simplify. Something about doing a lot of spiritual reading and thinking, combined with having a few hours a week to myself this semester (shh, else the baby fairy will come and make me pregnant to end that), I've been paring some stuff down. This is hard. I have a billion collections of random things. On the other hand, I also have stupid things of no use or attraction. Like a drawer full of XL t-shirts I never wear.

A is for addicted. I have several of these. Not really--addictions in my mind mean something like opiates, and I have none of those. But I have lots of, umm, hobbies. Like blogging. And learning about oak trees. And spending too much time online. And coffee.

R is for random. I'm realizing as I glance at my calendar these days that I've developed a random selection of interests whose venn diagrams would not normally intersect, except that they do at me. Church meetings, girl scouts, knitting conventions, mah jongg, hiking, neighborhood, on and on.

A is for attention. I'm not ADD, I'm gifted. Right? Something like that. My mind doesn't wander--if I want to learn/know/do/eat/finish/make/accomplish something, I will do it, to the exclusion of everything else. The problem is, once I've done something, I tend to be done. I don't have a lot of staying power unless there's something new to learn (quilting, for instance, is experiencing a resurgence because I've taught myself machine quilting--but La Leche League lost me because the stuff I was interested in went away).

H is for happy. With my coffee in hand, my girls learning something, maybe somebody taking a nap, the house clean enough, the weather coming up on fall bit by bit, I'm happy.